It is the depths of winter here. The storms come: yesterday there was snow in the high country and sea swells hitting coastal areas. As we live close to the sea, we take notice of such. The storm swell around the East Coast of the North Island was significant yesterday.
Haumoana resident and Walking on Water (Wow) spokesman Keith Newman said owners on the beach were in a dilemma, finding it very difficult to gain resource consent to protect their homes.
One family was told to pull out unconsented protection “realising doing so will cause problems to their neighbours”.
“They are trying to sell their property because it has been so emotionally costly to them dealing with the powers that be.”
Newman is a member of the Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Group which is seeking a strategy for the long-term management of the coast.
“This week we will be looking at a short list of options, which essentially brings us back where we were with the councils three years ago,” he said.
Wow’s proposal for a groyne field was presented as an option seven years ago.
MetService meteorologist Brian Mercer said yesterday’s 2m swell was increased by a tide slightly higher than normal and, because the storm was well off the coast, the interval between swells increased.
“Even though 2m isn’t an enormous height, there is a huge amount of energy in each wave because they have that long period, so are more likely to be destructive and more likely to travel up the beach a little bit further.”
He said the storm was shifting southeast, which made it more likely Cape Kidnappers would protect the coastline today.
The pressure group quoted has but 15 members. The coast there is sparsely populated (with good reason). But problems exist around New Zealand. Where communities may literally be swept away by the sea.
This imagery was used by Samuel when the Kingdom of Israel was founded and Saul inaugurated as the first king. If the nation turns aside from God, it will be swept away. But he also says this: he will not sin against God not pray for his nation nor warn them. In that dispensation, the people of Israel were the chosen of God.
In our dispensation, this has been extended to all nations: both blessing and warning. If we serve the LORD, it will be good for us. But if we reject the LORD, we will be hit with worse than winter storms.
20And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart; 21and do not turn aside after useless things that cannot profit or save, for they are useless. 22For the LORD will not cast away his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself. 23Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you; and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24Only fear the LORD, and serve him faithfully with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you. 25But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”Acts 8:14-25
14Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit 16(for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). 17Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. 18Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, 19saying, “Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” 20But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! 21You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. 22Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.” 24Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may happen to me.”
25Now after Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans.
Peter took one look at Simon the Great and told him to take his money and leave. Come back when he had repented. Seeking power and spiritual brownie points does not make you part of the congregation.
If a nation seeks god, God will it honour. If we let in those who preach other things, other ideologies, we will end up worshipping other idols, and that diversity no nation makes.
Are we still a nation? And what is a nation? French writer Ernest Renan gave us the answer in the 19th century:
“A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things … constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received.
“Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate: our ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past with great men and glory … is the social capital upon which the national idea rests. These are the essential conditions of being a people: having common glories in the past and a will to continue them in the present; having made great things together and wishing to make them again.”
Does this sound at all like us today?
Watching our Lilliputians tearing down statues and monuments, renaming buildings and streets, rewriting history books to replace heroes and historical truths with the doings of ciphers, are we disassembling the nation we once were?
“One loves in proportion to the sacrifices that one has committed and the troubles that one has suffered,” writes Renan, “One loves the house that one has built and that one passes on.”
Are we passing on the house we inherited – or observing its demolition?
We have to return to an older set of ideas: Cuius regio, cuius religio. The King shall defend the faith of his fathers, which shall be the Protestant Faith, bought with the blood of martyrs from Tyndall to the missionaries dying in this time. We will align with other peoples who have Kings to defend the church of Christ, and we will not be choosy as to if they are Protestant, Papists or Orthodox.
Because the alternative is disintegration, atomisation.
And without foundations, we will fall in the next flood.